I think this tracking data merging process might need to be done outside of Aximmetry. Otherwise, you won't be able to use Aximmetry's camera calibrator to create lens files.

In my experience, some PTZ cameras have built-in image stabilization, which can cause discrepancies between the images and the results obtained using external tracking, limiting the quality of the tracking.

For what it's worth, I've been using both at the same time but on different cameras, so they're not mutually exclusive.

To mix both, however you'd have to enter the compounds and add your own nodes to add the cam transform of the Mars to the PTZ camera.

It’s very much possible to do this, using the pretty much undocumented secondary useage of the unintuitively  named Zoom Device. The Zoom Device will send both zoom and focus data as well as the pan and tilt data from the PTZ. This will automatically be combined with your Vive tracking data. This assumes that your Vive tracker isn’t attached to the moving part of the PTZ, since this will double the pan/tilt data, as I found out the hard way. 

Hi,

Hogskulen, yes, it is possible. In the INPUT panel, set the Tracking Device parameter for the Vive Mars and for the Zoom Device parameter, select the PTZ camera's internal tracking.

Johan, this feature used to be undocumented, but I believe it is now clearly described in several places. 

For more details, please refer to our documentation on special cases here: https://aximmetry.com/learn/virtual-production-workflow/tracking/setting-up-the-communication/how-to-set-up-tracking-systems-in-aximmetry/#special-cases 

Warmest regards,

@eifert: The documentation is still pretty vague…. Also, combining the Zoom Device with secondary positional tracking data is just a bad design choice. In our case, we only want to use the Zoom (and focus) data from our Sony FR7 PTZ while the ReTracker Bliss handles all tracking data. Since the Bliss is mounted directly on the camera body, we get doubled pan and tilt data and there’s no way to just use the lens data from the PTZ. No, we can’t (and won’t) mount the tracker on the base of the FR7. We just want the Zoom device to be a Zoom Device and nothing else. As it is now, the name of the function and the double functionality only mentioned as a vague sidenote deep in the documentation is a major oversight that I hope will be addressed soon. 

Hi Johan,

Warmest regards,